Fayle
by Littlemadd1
Summary: Young Hero Fayle lives in the decaying family seat with only her aging grandfather and the animals for company. She sees before her no escape from the half life she is living, but, when a stranger appears at the door, a whole new world of possibility is revealed.
1. Chapter 1

**HP & all associated chars. belong, of course, to the wonderful JKR, and are merely borrowed by me for the purposes of this fanfic. **

**This is early fanfic work and all feedback is gratefully received.**

**Aspects of Magical Theory and practice are influenced by the fantastic articles on Red Hen.**

1.

Hero jerks awake. Her breathing is fast and ragged, her bed sheets soaked through with sweat, the coppery tang of adrenalin hot and salty in her mouth, like blood. She lies still, allowing her breathing to slow, allowing the nightmare to fade.

At least, she thinks, ruefully, she never has to set an alarm. It is half past four. She knows this without glancing at any clock; the nightmare always ends at half past four.

Pushing herself up she swings her legs round, so that she is sitting on the edge of her bed, the room around her is dark still, but the waxing moon casts a faint silvery light through the thin curtains that cover the grimy latticed window, enough so that she can see the outlines of furniture, her desk with its stacks of books and notepads, the great big wardrobe that takes up so much space on the far side of the room, and the overflowing bookcases are all dark features in the grey room.

Standing, she strips her bed of its damp sheets and with fatalistic resignation begins another long day.

It is some hours later, whilst feeding the pigs, that Hero remembers that it is her birthday.

The thought stops her mid-feed for a moment until the big black Berkshire brings her back to a sense of her responsibilities with a shove from his wet nose. She empties the last feed bucket for him and then continues on to the chicken roosts to feed the hens and collect the eggs.

She is grateful, today, for the old worn but thick wind breaker, for a cold north-easterly is blowing strongly round the old stone outbuildings of the courtyard.

These aren't really stock buildings, though that is what they are now used for. The worn stone walls that are now the pig-pens, the hen house and the sheep fold once served the main building as stables, carriage house and servants quarters. That had been many years ago though, when Fayle Castle had been the great house of the neighbourhood, the manor house of a large and prosperous estate. Now, it was little more than a crumbling relic, a dilapidated reminder of better days long past.

It wasn't really a castle. Though it had more right to be called one that some others that bore the title. Once indeed the site had been occupied by a Norman fortress that had rudely replaced a Saxon long house, the fortress had in turn been replaced by subsequent structures, until now, centuries later, the building was so much a mish-mash of periods and styles that it was hard to know what to call it.

Hero frowned up at the sagging gutter as she walked back toward the Castle, was it her imagination or was there grass there again. She sighed. She had only been up to the roof two weeks ago to clear them, hadn't she, well maybe three weeks, not more than four certainly, and it had been a task that had taken all of one exhausting Saturday. She couldn't spare another.

Removing muddy boots and windbreaker she stepped into the great flagstoned kitchen, placing the eggs in the egg boxes ready to be put in the little 'farmshop' she kept stocked up with produce. This 'farmshop' was an old Gatelodge building by the main road to the village, and the income from the villagers who bought the produce and a little passing trade during in the tourist season helped supplement what they got for the pigs and sheep they reared, and the land they rented out to the local farmers.

The buzzer rang.

Hero quickly filled the toaster before dashing upstairs to the master bedroom. The castle was apply provided with staircases, but, conveniently, one of the old servants staircases led from just outside the vast kitchen to the main landing off which the principal bedroom suites were situated.

Appearing now, from a concealed door in the panelled hall, Hero approached the doorway opposite the door to her own room. She took a steadying breath and knocked politely and waited for permission to enter before opening the door and stepping inside.

The Old Man sat crumpled in his chair before the fire, his face thin and sallow, skin sagging, hair yellowing white and as thin and spare as gossamer, though his blue eyes, bright and piercing, still and held something of that lively spark that must once have inhabited him.

They didn't speak; they had no need of words. Hero set about her tasks, as quietly and efficiently as an one girl could. She built up the glowing remains of the fire, stripped the sheets from the bed and remade it with the speed of long practise. She emptied the commode and, once cleaned, moved the commode to within easy reach of the Old Man's armchair. All this and several other little considerations were done easily and without fuss or comment from either party.

Exiting with the sheets and nightclothes, Hero paused for an instant; an impulse of the moment encouraged her to speak, to mention the day, the 31st of October, her birthday. The urge was, however, quickly suppressed. What good would it do after all? None that she could see.

The laundry joined her own in the laundry room, and the machine was loaded and switched on before she set up a breakfast try for the Old Man. This done she carried it up the stairs and made sure, by waiting for a few moments as he began his meal, that he wanted nothing more from her.

Hero's uniform was hanging on the outside of her wardrobe, expectant. The jumper was too large for her, the elastic wasted; the colour faded through over washing and the school badge was the old one from the previous headmaster's regime. Nevertheless she was glad to have received it, and three others like it, from Mrs Mallow, their nearest neighbour, whose youngest child had moved up to the big school that September.

"You might as well take them, dear." The kind hearted lady had told her as she handed the bundle to Hero having flagged her down on her bicycle. "No use to my boys now and there's still plenty of ware left in them."

Hero had blushed hotly, but she had taken them, for all that her pride rebelled at the charity, and she had thanked Mrs Mallow very politely and taken her some of the fresh lavender that the lady always admired whenever she came up to the castle, which she did, now and then, always with a kind word and never without some cake or loaf that she just happened to have made.

If Hero could choose a mother, she would choose someone like Mrs Mallow.

Cold shower endured, uniform on, booted and coated, Hero left the Hall, grabbed her bike and began the long ride toward the village. The beginning section, down the long drive that connected the castle to the road, was by far the worst part of the journey, broken as it was by pot holes, gnarled roots and foot wide cracks and mired by overgrown shrubbery, fallen leaves and broken branches.

Once this was past however, the following three miles to the village were fairly easy going, there being only one steep hill, and a fairly good road surface.

The bike, like everything that belonged to the castle, had seen better days; it was an ancient machine, made sometime after the Second World War, of heavy durable iron and steel, it had just the one gear and absolutely no suspension.

The wind had picked up vehemence and seemed to take a vicious delight in attempting to blow her off the road at every chance. A mile in, the dark looming clouds opened. Hero, long suffering, peddled onwards. Jayden Edwards's father's gleaming black Land Rover showered her with mud as it sped by, Jayden leering at her from the back seat.

After passing a sign that thanked her for driving carefully, Hero rounded a bend in the road and beheld the principal part of the little market town that was Fayle. It consisted largely of the market square, with its wind worn buttercross, (where indeed a market was still held every Wednesday during the tourist season,) and the buildings that surrounded it. These being the parish church on one side of the square, the church aided school at its side, the town's two competing pubs, the Woolpack and the Fayle Arms, the local co-op, a handful of independent shops, including newsagent, chemist, and florist, and then along the east side, set a little back from the square itself was the practically new council funded building which housed the public library, the doctors surgery, and town council offices.

Hero placed her old bike into the bike rack and locked it with her chain and pad lock. Not that she imagined any thief would be like to steal it, unless they happened to be looking for museum pieces, however, she didn't put it past Jayden Edwards and his little 'gang' to take it and throw it in the river. In fact they had indeed done just that last summer. Luckily the weight and resilience of the bike meant it took little hurt from such an adventure. Still, Hero had had to wade in and drag the thing out, which she didn't fancy doing again anytime soon.

The school bell rang, and the class lines formed with almost choreographed precision. Hero scampered to join the line for Class 4, the combined year 5 and 6 class.

Miss Mills eyed Hero as she joined the back of the queue, but said nothing, after a cursory inspection of the lines; Miss Mills began to send them in, class by class. Class 4 were left till last and Miss Mills detained Hero with a look as they trooped through the door.

Hero stood silent under the teacher's scrutiny. Miss Mills was Class 2's teacher, a pleasant, blonde haired young woman, who like sparkly scarves and wore dangly earrings.

"You're covered in mud." Miss Mills told Hero in her blunt way with a frown at her splattered trousers.

Hero swallowed uncomfortably but remained silent. It was better, she knew from experience, not to speak unless responding to a direct question.

Miss Mills sighed, as if disappointed somehow. "Go and wash your face." Was all she said however, and Hero hurried off towards the toilets.

She was indeed liberally splattered with mud, from that black Land Rover, she even had a bloody gash on her hand where a stone had kicked up, she was grateful Miss Mills had missed that, she might have felt compelled to make a report. When teachers did that, things got… complicated.

Hero didn't hate school, despite idiots like Jayden and his ilk, and even despite being something of an outcast. Her love of learning outweighed these evils. Knowledge, she knew, was something special, something to be cherished and sort out.

The other parts of school, the play times, the group games, the cliques and politics of pre-adolescent life Hero could happily dispense with, but school was a package deal, and on balance Hero decided to take the good with the ill.

Mrs Greave's, Class 4's teacher, regarded Hero warily as she entered. Hero didn't exactly know why, but she seemed to upset adults in some way. Children too, come to that, but that was more explicable. Why the teachers, teaching assistants, and dinner ladies should all regard Hero as some sort of strange exotic animal they didn't quite understand was beyond her, but so it was, and after nearly seven years at the school, she didn't imagine it would change now.

Hero sat down at her desk, a group of two tables making a set of four. This table is known on Mrs Greaves's papers and planning as Hawk group, but is known differently in the playground, Geek Squad, being the most inoffensive.

These three children, Beth Thornwood, Ross Waltson and George Love, are the closest thing to friends that Hero has. They are friends through necessity rather than through any actual affection, they never associate outside of school, except for the occasional birthday, but in school, they shield one another as best as they can from their school fellows.

Mrs Greave's encourages the group towards independent work; the four of them are indeed so far ahead of the rest of their class that it is difficult for her to involve them in whole class activities.

School is a place of routine, and the days follow a regular pattern that Hero knows well. Assembly, followed by Active 8, followed by Maths, then a break before English, then comes lunch time, after which comes the afternoon session, which is given over to the other curriculum areas, science on Mondays, history or geography on Tuesdays, P.E on Wednesdays, R.E on Thursdays, and music on Fridays. It was Tuesday today.

Tuesday the 31st if October.

Hero found herself struck again as she neatly wrote the date on her notebook. Halloween. Her birthday.

There had been a time, before the Old Man took so ill, when he had bought her presents, and bought a cake. He had told her to make a wish as she blew out the candles and had clapped when she blew them all out in one go, but those days felt like they were a long time ago.

The table behind her, Sparrow Group, were deep in conversation together, chatting about Halloween, costumes and parties, and trick-or-treating.

No one on the Hawk table had mentioned it.

The day wore on, and the weather outside only worsens, by the time the final bell rings ending the school day Hero wasn't at all looking forward to the ride back home. Her heart sinks even further as she approaches her bike, still chained to the bike rack, its tyres slashed and deflated.

A burst of mocking laughter sounds behind her, her muscles tense and she closes her eyes, the cold rain running down her face like tears, but she doesn't turn. She knows who it was well enough, Jayden Edwards.

Hero opens the lock, took of the chain, and began the long walk down the street, pushing the heavy old bicycle without so much as a backwards glance.

This time the Black Land Rover kicked up a stone that caught her smartly on the head, Hero staggers and falls, the bike slides down into the drainage ditch at the side of the road. The world seems to swim out of focus for a moment, and a hand reaching tentatively to a spot just above her eye comes back red with blood.

The Land Rover has slid to a halt a dozen yards ahead and a tanned, designer jean wearing, older version of Jayden Edwards steps down from the high perch of the driving seat. Hero scrambles to her feet swiftly, too swiftly as it happens, since her balance deserts her and she falls gracelessly again to the mud.

The man appears looming over her like a wrathful demi-god. Hero can see Jayden with his nose pressed to the glass gleefully watching her discomfiture.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" the man demands. "Trying to get yourself killed?"

Hero merely blinks up at him, her head still reeling uncomfortably. Nausea threatens to engulf her, but she pushes it down unwilling to show further weakness in front of this man.

"Village idiot." He mutters disgusted at her dumb silence. He glances down at the bike in the ditch and a sneer crosses his face, despite this however, and with a doleful glance down at his expensive jeans, he slides down into the ditch and manages after a good deal of shoving, slipping and sliding, to haul the bike back onto the road.

Hero, having regained some of herself, thanks him with her usual proper politeness and would have continued on her way, except that the man stops her abruptly and demands to know who has slashed the bike's tyres.

"I didn't see, sir." Hero temporises for forms sake, telling the man that it was his own son who slashed the tyres didn't seem like the best idea right now.

Mr Edwards made several remarks on the state of moral decay prevalent in modern society, to which Hero returned polite non-committal remarks and would have moved on. But again the man stopped her, this time, by picking up her bike and without comment or ceremony thrust the machine into the Land Rover's boot. "Hop in." he tells her curtly. "I'll drive you home."

Since he didn't wait for an answer, Hero was left with little choice but to do as she was bid and climb into the plush, comfortable, and warm interior of the Land Rover.

Jayden's face was a picture to behold, he was evidently not at all pleased by the turn his little trick had taken. He was wise enough, however, to put on a false smile as his father addresses him.

"Thought I ought to rescue your little school friend, Jay." He tells his son. "Barcroft estate, is it?" He continues now addressing Hero.

Hero blushes hotly and Jayden had to hide a bark of laughter with a false cough, Barcroft was a rundown old council estate build on an old airfield a few miles away.

"Just up the road, sir. The Castle."

There was an awkward pause. "Right, okay, the castle." Jayden's father agrees and drives off with another shower of mud and stones.

The Land Rover bounced over the wreck of the drive with far less trouble then Hero's old bike, but Hero felt her stomach clench with shame as the old dilapidated building came into view. Its towers and turrets covered with ivory, its roof slate green with moss, windows greasy or broken or boarded over. Chickens pecking round in overgrown flowerbeds, sheep grazing in grass that was once wide formal lawns.

Hero could easily read the distain in the faces of both father and son. She slides out of the car and is followed by the father who lifts the bike from the Land Rover's ample boot. He could hardly meet Hero's eye. She thanks him again, very properly, and once again is detained. He had pulled something out of the boot, a bright yellow florescent vest with reflective patches. He pushes it at her impulsively.

"Take it." He practically demands as she opens her mouth to refuse the gift. "That way you'll be safer on that iron monstrosity." With that he climbs swiftly back into the Land Rover and speeds away down the drive.

For a long moment, Hero stands stunned on the wide space before the grand façade of the castle frontage. No one ever used the formal front entrance. In fact Hero couldn't remember the great oversized doors every being opened. Everyone went round, through the arched carriage way, to the courtyard and the back of the castle. For the first time in a long while Hero took a second to stand and look at the edifice. The old weather-beaten arms of her forbearers above the massive oaken twelve foot high door studded with wrought iron; the great windows, the stained glass, the worn statues, and the crumbling stonework.

With a shake of the head she walks round to the back. This was what the castle was to her, the pigs and the chickens, the sheep and the vegetables. That formal grandeur of the castle's front face was part of a life that had vanished before she had ever been born.

Hero would normally have changed before beginning her work with the animals, but considering how muddy she was already, there didn't seem to be much point.

By six o'clock, with the animals fed and watered, and the Old Man as comfortable as she could make him, Hero finally summoned the courage to look at her poor eviscerated bike. She had been avoiding it since she first saw the damage. Hero knew that Jayden Edwards had done it merely to be irritating, he, with his father's warm Land Rover, with his expensive mountain bike, his big new build house in the picturesque hamlet of Lorne, he didn't understand that in slashing Hero's tyres he had as good as crippled her.

She didn't cycle because she enjoyed it, she cycled because that was her only alternative to walking, and walking meant that she would have to set off an hour earlier. She ran a despairing hand through her hair, a search through the spare parts shed had revealed two old tires but only one inner tube, and one was as good as none, really.

Maybe though, just maybe, she could patch the other inner tube well enough to do until she could get into the hardware place tomorrow.

Hero was up to her arms in rubber, glue and chalk in a vain attempt to patch an inner tube that was more hole than rubber when a knock sounded at the door. Hero stood with a sigh and opened the door.

It was a stranger. That wasn't so unusual. Every now and then, land developers sent people round to talk to the Old Man about selling some of his land for housing projects, this was to no avail, he would never see them, but that didn't stop them trying. Other people came too, tradesmen, tinkers, and the like… this man, however, didn't seem to be any of these things, though Hero was hard put to say what he, in fact, was.

He was a tall man and slim, with a sculpted jaw and deep hooded grey eyes, but he was dressed oddly, in strangely miss-matched clothes that he looked ill-at-ease in. "Miss Hero Fayle?" the man asked regarding her slowly for a moment. His eyes taking in the fresh cut over her eye and the newly blossoming bruises. He didn't look impressed and his tone that suggested he'd quite like her not to be Hero Fayle.

Hero nodded, sorry to disappoint him. "Yes, I'm Hero."

"My name is Acer." The man tells her. "Professor Acer. I have come to speak to you and your family."


	2. Chapter 2

2 Professor Acer

Hero, trying surreptitiously to rub the worst of the chalk and glue off her hands without notable success, hesitated. She was unsure what the Old Man would want her to do but in the end she led the man into the cavernous kitchen.

Suddenly seeing the place through the eyes of a stranger she cringed inwardly, ashamed of the grime and the cobwebs, the ancient pans and cauldrons left to die on their rusting hooks.

Hero offered the man a drink, but was very relieved when he refused. As soon as she had offered, she had remembered that the coffee had run out weeks ago and there were only two tea bags left.

The Professor (if that was what he was, Hero didn't have a very exact knowledge of what a 'professor' was, but in her mind they had to do with old people in universities, and this man didn't look old enough to be a 'professor',) was standing looking around the kitchen with an astonished eye, his gaze rested for some considerable time on the ruined tyre that littered the massive kitchen table.

Eventually the man pulled his attention from the rubber and told Hero he needed to speak to her parents.

"I haven't any, Professor." Hero replied with careful politeness, questioning the wisdom of allowing the strange man in.

The Professor accepted her disavowal of parents easily enough. He didn't offer condolences or false words of sympathy, Hero liked him the better for his restraint on this point, too often people felt the need to say something awkward and untrue when they learned she was an orphan.

"I live with the O…" she corrected herself hurriedly, "with my Grandfather. He is gone to bed."

The man frowned at this, he pointedly flicked his gaze to the kitchen clock, which since it had long since broken, only gave the correct time twice a day, however she saw his point and answered his unspoken words.

"He is not well." She told him. What exactly was wrong with the Old Man was as much a mystery to Hero as to the doctors who had, at one time, been frequently sent for.

The professor gave a sigh of frustration at this information. "I am sorry to hear it." He offered, "But I am afraid that I must disturb him." He noted her hesitation and added. "It is important."

Hero gave a nod that was almost a bow as she stepped back and headed up the servants stairs towards the bedrooms. The voice that responds to her knock was faint and rough with under use. Hero walked in with trepidation; it was not her custom to come to his room unbidden.

"Your pardon, sir." Hero began uncertainly, hoping that her actions wouldn't earn her a stiff rebuke. "There is a man downstairs that says he wishes to talk to you."

The Old Man was slumped against the feather pillows piled up in his great four poster bed whose wood is almost black with age. The eyes that regard her now are dim and unfocused, but through it took what appeared to be a great effort, the old man leavered himself into a more upright position and his eyes brighten and focus with greater attention.

"A developer?" The Old Man croaked querulously.

Hero paused, calling to mind the picture of the so called professor. "I don't think he's a developer." Hero replied cautiously. "He... he said his name is Acer, sir, Professor Acer. He said he wanted to speak to you, he said it was important." Hero gave all this information in a rush of volubility and then waited nervously for the result, as one might who had just thrown gunpowder on to the embers of a dying fire.

The result however was not what she had expected. There was no explosion of wrath, the old wrinkled face merely creased into a frown. "Acer?" he repeated. "Acer, you say. The man's name is Acer?"

Hero assured the Old Man that it was.

"An old man, is he?"

"No, sir. Not old." Hero replied.

"Hummm…" the Old Man considered the matter. "Well, well. Better bring the man up." He told Hero placidly.

Hero headed back downstairs her curiosity piqued. Hero enters the kitchen to find the stranger running a hand over the mess of rubber and glue she had been attempting to fix together.

He regards her enquiringly and indicates the rubber. "What is this?" he asks in honest bewilderment.

"My bicycle tyre, sir." Hero replies sheepishly. "I was trying to fix it." She shrugs away the worry that floods her. "My grandfather says he will see you." She adds, and proceeds to lead him through the house to the more formal stairs that led from the formal marbled entrance hall.

Again she pauses to knock at the door and waits for the Old Man's command to enter before opening the door and ushering the Professor in.

She sees with some surprise that the Old Man has moved himself back to his armchair and donned his best dressing gown. "Sir," Hero begins addressing the Old Man, "this is Professor Acer." She turns to the professor. "Professor, my grandfather, Lord Fayle."

The Professor's back seems to stiffen at the title but he recovers so swiftly Hero thinks she may have imagined the reaction. He steps toward the Old Man's chair and offers his hand, which the Old Man accepts with civility, almost pleasure, his eyes fixed searchingly on the younger man's face. The Old Man offers the professor a chair and a smile twitches at his pale lips as the fire light flickers across the professor's face.

"A likeness." He mutters to himself. "A definite likeness." He clears his throat noisily and addressed the professor. "The child calls you Acer. You'd be a relation to Allory Acer."

The question obviously surprised the younger man but he acknowledged that he had had a great uncle by that name.

An odd noise escaped the Old Man and Hero started forward thinking he must be having some sort of fit. He was laughing. Laughing. Hero felt her own lips twitching in response despite her astonishment; she couldn't remember the last time the Old Man had laughed.

"Well, well, well." The Old Man chortled. "You're wondering how I know that name, I'll be bound."

"I am, sir." Acknowledged the Professor honestly.

"Well, I met him, once. When I was a boy." The Old Man's eyes grew reflective as he thought on the memory. "Eugenia Howard-Grey – Eugenia Blishwick as she became. She was a second cousin of some sort; she came to live with us when I was a boy." He gave a smile. "She used to bring her school friends home sometimes, for Christmas, or in the summer. That's when I met Acer, they were kind to me, Eugenia and her friends."

The Professor raised her brows curiously. "So…" the professor paused. "So… you know something about…"The professor trailed off uncertainly.

The Old Man waved an airy hand, "Something, something. Not much, but something. The girl will attend this school then, what was it called, Bogsthorpe, was it?"

"Hogwarts." The Professor corrected shortly.

"Aye, that was it." The Old Man agreed. "Outlandish sort of name, somewhere in Scotland isn't it?"

Hero feels her heart lurch uncomfortably. Half hope, half fear. She hadn't exactly followed everything the two men had been saying… or at least, she had followed it but had not understood its obvious import. What she did understand was that for the first time in years the Old Man was showing an interest in her future.

She was in Year Six now, her last year of Primary School. Next September would see her year group moving their separate ways. Fayle Primary fed principally into the big schools at either Cockermouth or Keswick but when Hero had approached the Old Man with the school choices form he had scoffed at both these well thought of schools and crumpled the paper before tossing it towards the fire.

"Yes, in Scotland." The Professor agreed solemnly.

The Old Man give a grunt of undetermined meaning and twisted round in his chair searching the shadows. "Come forward, girl." He told her. "Don't skulk." Her heart feeling over large and cumbersome as it thumped, Hero stepped closer to the Old Man's chair. "See this fellow..." The Old Man indicated the Professor. "He's a teacher at a special school."

Hero feels the blood drain from her face as chest constricts sickeningly. 'Special School'. The words sent a strum of fear vibrating through her entire body.

"I'll let the man say his piece." The Old Man continued oblivious to Hero's distress.

Her gaze now snapped to the Professor who sat so stiff and upright in the old leather chair. He returned her look blandly, the fire cast wavering flickering light across the features of his face making it appear at once sharp then shadowed.

"Your grandfather is correct, Miss Fayle. I am a teacher at a special school. It is a school for children with…" he paused, searching for the correct phrase, "…for children with specific talents."

Hero felt remarkably unenlightened by this explanation. She was smart, she knew that, and she liked to learn… but that was hardly a 'talent' as such. She wasn't musical or arty or anything like that. She remained silent hoping the matter would be further explained.

The Professor gave a small half smile. "Miss Fayle, Hogwarts is a school of Magic." He explained.

Magic. The word hung in the air.

"Magic?" Hero repeated incredulous, casting a glance towards the Old Man. Was this some kind of joke? It had to be, there was no such thing as magic, but the look on the Old Man's face gave her no clue and the Professor continued to regard her with solemn seriousness. "Magic isn't real." Hero said firmly, a flash of angry defiance at this stupid prank making her tilt up her stubborn chin.

"Is it not, Miss Fayle?" Professor Acer replied that half smile growing increasingly irritating. "Have you never made something happen… something you couldn't explain?"

Hero felt her jaw muscles tighten hard and her teeth clenched fiercely. Impossible. The rational part of her brain screamed at her. Totally impossible. Magic didn't exist. Magic only happened in story books.

But, but, but… another, quieter, part of her brain objected… but, you can't lie to yourself, you know… _you know_… you might pretend not to, you might hide from it, coward that you are, but you know you can do things that other people can't.

No! Her suspicions insisted, this was just some stupid birthday prank the Old Man had dreamed up. No one knew about… about those things she could do.

Come off it, the quiet voice scoffed, is it really more likely that you're the only one, or does it make sense that there are others? Other people, other children, who can do what you can do. A bit arrogant, really, to imagine you are the only one.

"Well, Miss Fayle?" The Professor's cool voice interrupted her wildly spinning thoughts.

Hero cast another glance at the Old Man, his eyes seemed to dance. It occurred to her then, in a brief flash of understanding, that he, the crinkled old man before her, had wanted this for himself. He had had a cousin who was kind to him, a cousin he idolized, and he had wanted to follow her into her world.

"I… I suppose…" Hero began meekly, "I suppose there are things… things that have happened."

Professor Acer nodded, accepting her submission gracefully. "You are one of a very small minority of human beings, Miss Fayle." he explained his set face softening into something more kindly. "You have been born with the ability to channel magic. Those… 'things' that have happened were instances when your latent magical abilities 'broke through'. Hogwarts is a school of witchcraft and wizardry and there you will be taught to harness and control your abilities." He then pulls a handsome leather bound book from his jacket and holds it out towards her. "This book should answer many of your questions." He told her as she hesitantly stepped forward to take the proffered object.

She ran a hand lovingly over the smooth dark blue leather with its handsome silver lettering. "_A Muggle-Born's Guide to the Magical World."_ She read. The gilt edged pages shone as she opened the book at random, and flicked over a page or two. She gasped astonished as she came to a picture; the figures in it were moving!

The Professor cleared his throat dragging her attention away. "So, Miss Fayle, shall you be accepting a place at Hogwarts?" He asked.

Hero looks dumbfounded for a moment and again her eyes are dragged back towards the Old Man.

The strange, wonderful, _magical_ world that the professor and the blue leather book represent suddenly dims and retreats.

How could she leave the Old Man, how could she leave Fayle? No, it was impossible, there were the animals to care for, the buildings to maintain, and not least, the Old Man to keep warm and fed, he was a proud old fellow, but there was much he couldn't do for himself anymore.

"Of course, she'll accept." The Old Man snapped seeing her hesitation.

Hero shook her head, taking a step and kneeling by the ancient armchair. "Sir, I don't think I can… not… not with things how they are." His face turned mulish and she continued hurriedly. "I'll do just fine at one of the nearby schools."

"What?" Barked the Old Man becoming animated in his ire. "What? You think you'll attend Keswick do you, or Cockermouth? Damn me if you will. Don't act more of the fool than you already are, girl."

Cowed by his display of bile, Hero had to swallow a tightness in her throat before she could speak again. "But, sir… who will…?" the question trailed off unvoiced but not unspoken. Who would run the house, who would see to him, to the shopping, to the animals, to the thousands of small jobs that needed to be done?

"You think pretty well of yourself, my girl." The Old Man noted with a contemptuous scowl. "Think this place will fall down without you, do you. This place which as housed the Fayles' for thirty generations?"

Hero knew there was no right answer to such a question. She kept silent, eyes down cast. This only seemed to further irritate the Old Man.

"Good God!" he exclaimed in accents of disgust. "To think of that long line, stretching into the very mists of history, to think of all that, and to see you," he paused meaningfully eyeing her with obvious displeasure. "The last of the Fayles."

Hero stood and backed away, keeping her eyes downcast so that the tears prickling her eyes wouldn't be seen and so call further scorn down upon her.

"The last of the Fayles." The Old Man repeated, the disdain now tinged with a bitter sadness. "That I should live to see it." The Old Man addressed the watchful Professor. "She'll attend this Hog place of yours, if I have to drag her there myself."

The professor's face twitched - a slight creasing of the brow, an infinitesimal curl of the lip. He hid his distaste well. "I'm certain that will not be required." He replied coldly. "I am sure, Miss Fayle," The professor told Hero in a kinder tone, "that your grandfather will see to the hiring of some house and ground staff." Though the words were for Hero, the younger man's eyes never left the Old Man. He must have seen whatever he was looking for, because he stood slowly and calmly and offered the Old Man his hand. As he took it the professor added. "I will return, in the summer, in order to accompany Miss Fayle… to purchase her school uniform and equipment."

"Girl, show the professor out." The Old Man told her curtly.

Hero did so silently, her body working on autopilot whilst her mind whirled, grappling with so many new ideas that she seems to walk through a dense fog. She still held the book he had given her and was clinging on to the volume as if it were a lifeline.

Back down in the kitchen the Professor pauses again by the wreck of rubber and glue. "This… this is important to you?"

Hero had forgotten, in the excitement, the eviscerated tyre that just a half hour ago had been occupying her whole concern. "Yes, Professor." Hero agrees. "I ride to school on my bike… or at least..." She made a despairing gesture toward the rubber, "at least… I used too."

The Professor nodded. Then he withdrew a long thin wooden stick from inside his ill-fitting musty jacket, Hero regarded him interestedly, watching as he pointed the stick at the sorry pile of rubber and makes a complicated movement, before her frankly astonished eyes the mangled rubber reforms into a whole and perfect inner tube.

Hero feels her jaw hanging open and closed it with a snap. Tentatively she reaches out a hand and touches the rubber, this is no illusion. The inner tube is real and is really fixed. Her eyes turn to the Professor, who stands regarding her with an odd expression on his face. The pity she recognizes, but there is something else there also and that she cannot so readily identify.

"Magic." The Professor tells her carefully. "It is a rare and special gift… until you have your wand you are not bound by magical law, and the law is not monstrous, it makes allowances for a natural curiosity in people situated as you are, but… I would advise you to be… circumspect." He turned to leave, then seemed to hesitate, he turns back. "May I ask you, Miss Fayle, when you became aware of your… talents?"

Hero gives this question due consideration, she has a good memory. She utilized it now, trying to pin point an instant that she had become aware of those little… talents… that allowed her to do things others could not do.

She answers him honestly. "The truth, sir, is that I cannot recall a time when I had not these… talents, as you term them. I thought… I thought that everyone had them. I remember… when I first went to school, and so came into contact with my peers, I remember being confused that they could not do the things that came so easily to me. I stopped speaking of it… I became… as you say… circumspect."

The man nodded as if she had merely confirmed a suspicion of his own. "I will be back," he tells her. "In the summer."


End file.
